Maistre Jhan (c. 1485 – October 1538) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 composer of the Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

, active for most of his career in Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. An enigmatic figure, of whom little biographical information has yet emerged, he was one of the earliest composers of madrigal

Madrigal (music)

A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....

s as well as a prominent musician at the Este

Este

The House of Este is a European princely dynasty. It is split into two branches; the elder is known as the House of Welf-Este or House of Welf historically rendered in English, Guelf or Guelph...

 court in the early 16th century.

Biography

Nothing is known of his early life, other than that he was French, for the earliest reference to him in the records of the Este court in Ferrara are as a "singer from France." He received his first payment from them in 1512, and remained employed there until his death 26 years later. During that time, as evident from the number of dedications made to him and favorable commentary in the records, he must have been honored; and he was maestro di cappella, choirmaster, for an unknown amount of the time. Several contemporary writers, including influential music theorist Adrianus Coclico

Adrianus Petit Coclico

Adrianus Petit Coclico was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance.-Biography:Like many Renaissance composers, very little is known about Coclico's early life. He was raised Catholic but became a Protestant and left Flanders for Germany...

, mention him as an expert composer.

Several composers with similar names have been confused with Maistre Jhan. Pioneering 19th-century French musicologist

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

 François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis was a Belgian musicologist, composer, critic and teacher. He was one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century, and his enormous compilation of biographical data in the Biographie universelle des musiciens remains an important source of information today...

 mistook him for Jhan Gero

Jhan Gero

Jhan Gero was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, apparently active mainly in Italy, particularly Venice...

; records at Ferrara seem to identify him with Jehan le Cocq and Johannus Gallus, people who have since been determined to be separate individuals; a Maistre Jhan in Verona has turned out to be Jan Nasco

Jan Nasco

Jan Nasco was a Franco-Flemish composer and writer on music, mainly active in Italy. He was the first director of the Veronese Accademia Filarmonica, and his writings, particularly a group of letters he wrote to the Academy in the 1550s, are important sources of information on performance...

.

Works and influence

While famous during his time, Jhan's work has largely faded into obscurity. He wrote in most of the genres current in the early 16th century, including, in sacred vocal music, masses (all but one of which are lost), motets, and lamentations. In style the sacred music is similar to the work of Josquin des Prez

Josquin Des Prez

Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...

 (died 1521), using imitative passages alternating with homophony

Homophony

In music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...

. Jhan wrote his one surviving setting of the mass for the accession to the dukedom of Ercole II d'Este (1534); it uses cantus-firmus technique.

Jhan's secular music includes madrigals and at least one chanson. The madrigals appear in publications from 1530 to 1550; his five madrigals published in 1530, along with works by Verdelot

Verdelot

Verdelot may refer to :* Philippe Verdelot, French composer of the Renaissance* Verdelot, a French commune in the Seine-et-Marne département...

, are part of the first book of madrigals ever to be published with that name. In 1542 three of his madrigals appear alongside composers such as Costanzo Festa

Costanzo Festa

Costanzo Festa was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. While he is best known for his madrigals, he also wrote sacred vocal music...

, Francesco Corteccia

Francesco Corteccia

Francesco Corteccia was an Italian composer, organist, and teacher of the Renaissance. Not only was he one of the best known of the early composers of madrigals, and an important native Italian composer during a period of domination by composers from the Low Countries, but he was the most...

, and Hubert Naich

Hubert Naich

Hubert Naich was a composer of the Renaissance, probably of Flemish origin, principally active in Rome. He was mainly a composer of madrigals, some in the note nere style.-Life:...

; the style of his works is similar to that of Verdelot, and represents the earliest stage of the genre, before it developed its peculiar individuality.